In the late 19th century, commercial photography was actively developing in the Russian Empire. From the mid-1870s, Vyacheslav Izmailovich Sreznevsky played a major role in Russian photography: he designed protective devices for photo cameras, created a camera for the expedition of Nikolay Mikhaylovich Przhevalsky, and invented an aerial camera and a waterproof camera. In 1885, officer Ilya Ivanovich Filipenko presented his field photographic camera, and later Ilya Ivanovich Karpov’s models were released.

The Russian Civil War led to the suspension of the production of photographic equipment. The lack of Soviet-made cameras was highlighted in the first issue of the magazine “Soviet Photo”, which was published in 1926.

The very first page of the article “For Soviet Photography” read as follows,

The next article was written by Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky,

In general, almost the entire first issue of the magazine was devoted to proving the need for the development of photography in the USSR: “The letters we receive from villages, factories, and plants where photography clubs are organized, say that the photo industry should and can become an industry of mass consumption.”

However, the first serial Soviet cameras appeared only in 1929. Those were EFTE folding plate cameras, produced by the “Foto-Trud” artel. The camera had single-extension bellows, and the image size was 9 by 12 centimeters. The EFTE-2 became the first camera that was assembled from Soviet-made parts. Subsequently, the products of the artel were released under the brand ARFO. Before the Great Patriotic War, the total number of models in production numbered over two dozen. The best-selling models were the FED and Fotokor cameras.